Coming of Age
by CharlesTheBold
Summary: Grace's 18th birthday is coming up, but she's not sure she's ready to be an adult. PLEASE REVIEW
1. Countdown

**COMING OF AGE**

_(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with JOAN. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it)_

_(Author's Note: This story is part of a series that takes place in the year after the JOAN OF ARCADIA TV show ended. A listing of the other stories is on my profile. The main events that have happened since May 2005 are _

_(1) Joan has let Grace, Luke, and Adam into her secret _

_(2) Luke has been promoted into the same grade as Joan, Grace, and Adam._

_(3) Grace and Luke have spent one night together _

_(4) Joan and Adam are engaged_

_This story is set in April, 2006_)

**Chapter 1 Countdown **

_(Author's Note: Grace's Hebrew name and her date of birth are my invention; LostSchizophrenic pointed out to me that a line in THE SILENCE implied a spring birthday)_

Asenka "Grace" Polk was born on April 29, 1988. On April 29, 2006, she would celebrate her 18th birthday, and become an adult, at least as far as most U. S. laws were concerned. And she was terrified at the idea.

She wouldn't admit to that, of course. She still put on the combative, cynical act. But she thought that Luke, Joan, and Adam might suspect it, and were just being tactful and polite about it, because they didn't want Grace to kick their butts.

There was, to start with, the matter of college. Most of her friends were going and knew where. Joan and Adam had found a large university where they could satisfy their diverse interests while living together as husband and wife. Luke was a year younger than the others but had been promoted up a grade by special dispensation; he seemed to be trying in his best to get into Harvard next year. But Grace had, until recently, felt little interest in academics and considered schools as a sort of prison. She barely had enough credits to graduate, and certainly not enough to interest a recruiter.

She told herself that didn't matter. Going to college was a middle class luxury; SHE was going to go out into the Real World and get an apartment and a job. Except that it wasn't that easy. She had tried to get part-time jobs during senior year. One, at a hotel, had flopped when she talked back to some rude customers. A second, at a biology lab run by friends of Luke, had failed because Grace had gotten sick upon seeing an experimental animal dissected. Some radical friends had offered her a job printing pamphlets for their cause, but the pay they were offering her wouldn't cover the rent for an apartment. Of course Grace could economize on rent by taking a roommate, but who wanted to live with her? Joan was her best friend but Grace suspected that even she would panic at the idea of being stuck with her 24/7..

Mixed up with the idea of her own apartment was the idea of privacy. Grace was a rabbi's daughter. To be sure it had not been an ideal rabbinical household, because of her mother's drinking habit. But Mrs. Polonski had finally overcome her addiction, the rabbi had admitted to handling the ongoing crisis badly, and they were both now determined to Do Things Right as parents. Including protecting their daughter from the lust of boys..

Last November, on Luke's 17th birthday, Grace had sneaked into his bedroom and offered to sleep with him that night. It had been her first time and it had been overwhelming, so much so that Grace inadvertently yelled and woke up Joan in the room next door. But the aftermath was frustrating. The Girardis knew what had happened and felt honor-bound to tell the Polonskis. At first the Polonskis had taken the attitude that Luke had seduced their daughter, and even after Grace convinced them otherwise, they still wouldn't permit any situation where the two would be under the same roof for a night.

Grace wanted to do It again, and had come up with various stratagems to avoid her parents, but to her amazement, Luke would not cooperate. He said that he wanted to marry her some day and wanted to earn her parents' respect, particularly since there were also religious differences to surmount. Grace was not interested in marriage for a long time, no matter what her friends were doing, and the excuse struck her as feeble. If he really wanted her, wouldn't he want another night with her? Was it possible that Grace had been a lousy lover? One more thing to worry about.

Others seemed to be enthusiastically grasping their futures. Joan and Adam were engaged to be married, and had found a college. Friedmann and Glynis were not only married but had a new baby. They had blundered into that, but they had made it a success and even kept up their grade point averages, and needless to say, dozens of colleges were open to those to those two brains. Luke had hopes of Harvard, and clearly any lesser school would be even easier for him to get into. Grace just felt left behind.

Grace even had competition that she hadn't met. After going on a trip with her father on an investigation the week before the birthday, Joan had come back, bubbling over about the new friend she had made, a Veronica Mars from California. Veronica had apparently had several tragedies in her life, but she was combative and fought back, usually with success. She had unraveled several mysteries concerning her rather dysfunctional family and hoped to become a professional detective using the same skills. Joan was so impressed with her that she had let Veronica into the Big Secret: that Joan and her Arcadia friends went on missions for God.

Grace wasn't sure that Joan even regarded her as "best friend" anymore, because she had actually not seen her much outside of school for the last few months. Of course there were reasonable explanations: Joan still had that job at the bookstore, and she was making preparations for her wedding (and probably assuming that Grace wouldn't be interested in bridal stuff), and maybe she had personal divine missions that she didn't want to talk about. Still, Grace felt the absence.

It was Monday, April 24. One week to straighten out a host of problems. Of course there was nothing magical about her 18th birthday: it was only in the last generation that it had come to be considered the dividing line, and even then it didn't carry the right to drink, which Grace didn't care about. By Jewish custom Grace had become an adult when she completed her bat mitzvah. All the same, she had the irrational feeling that if something was wrong on April 29, it would be wrong for the rest of her life.


	2. Surprise, surprise

**COMING OF AGE**

**Chapter 2 Surprise, surprise**

"Grace! Grace!"

Grace heard Maggie Begh's accented voice in the school hallway and slowed down. Maggie caught up, but once on the spot she looked flustered. "Um, um, I hear you will be 18 soon, and that is a big thing in America--"

"Yeah, it's supposed to be."

"I, um, didn't get a message--"

_Oh._ Grace understood what was worrying Maggie. She understood about birthday parties, and was upset because she didn't get an invitation to one. A rich Muslim girl, with high social status in her home country but rather an outsider in the U.S., she was probably sensitive to social signals like that. "It's OK, Maggie. There won't be a party. My parents are taking me to New York to celebrate with some relatives."

It wasn't the entire story. Mr. and Mrs. Girardi had invited the Polonskis to a dinner in Grace's honor for Thursday night. The Cavalos, Girardi cousins on whose farm Grace had worked last winter, would be there, but of course the Girardi parents knew little about Maggie and hadn't put her on the guest list. There wasn't much that Grace could do about that, except not tell Maggie in the first place.

"Ah," said Maggie, cheerfully. "But you can still receive gifts with no party, no?"

"Sure. The more the merrier."

Maggie was used to Grace-style sarcasm by this point and let that slide. "Please come by my place tonight, around 6. I have a surprise."

"Is it still a surprise if I know I'm going to get it?"

"In this case, yes," Maggie called, melting into a crowd of students before Grace could ask more.

Grace had no car -- saving up for an apartment was far more important -- so she looked to the Girardis for a lift. Joan, when found, said vaguely that she had another engagement that night. But Luke was willing to oblige.

At quarter to six, Luke picked up Grace from the Polonski residence. As she got into the vehicle, Grace asked: "Did Maggie tell you what this was about?"

"No. I don't think her father lets her talk to strange boys."

"Mmmm, you do fit that description. The trouble is, the best guess is so obvious. The Beghs raise horses, and supposedly every girl asks for a pony at some time in her childhood, so they'll try to give me a horse for a present. But I can't handle that right now."

"It may not be the best guess. Maybe the Beghs are employing Game Theory."

"Game Theory?"

"The analysis of strategy. Do you know the movie A Beautiful Mind?"

"Yeah, you told us about that junior year. Your sister always beat you at Rock/Paper/Scissors anyway."

Luke frowned. "That's because Game Theory assumes that your opponent's decision-making is rational. Joan isn't."

"Is there a point to this digression?"

"Oh, yes. I mean, the Beghs may want you to think the surprise gift is a horse. Then it won't be, and you'll be really surprised."

"I get it. That would be better."

"Of course, they may expect you to reason it out that way. Then they surprise you by actually giving you a horse."

Grace snorted. "So your Game Theory isn't much use to me at the moment."

"Not in this case. It's call a zero-sum game."

"That's not the label I had in mind."

They finally pulled in at the Begh farm. Professor Begh and his daughter were waiting on the fancy front porch of their villa. Luke parked in front of the porch and the two got out together. "Good evening, Professor. This is Joan's brother, Luke Girardi." Grace was reticent about introducing Luke as her boyfriend, particularly to a conservative Muslim who might not approve of such relationships. "Luke, Professor Begh."

"I'd like to talk with you, young man," said the Professor. "But, first, my daughter has something to show Grace."

"She is here!" called out Maggie to her left.

Around the corner of the house, Grace could hear the familiar clip-clop of hooves_. I thought so. It's a horse. And I'll have to act surprised, and then talk them out of it somehow_. Then a girl rounded the corner leading a beautiful palomino by the reins, and Grace stared in genuine astonishment. Not at the horse, but at the girl.

"JOAN! But I thought you hated horses!"

"I never said that!" said Joan proudly, delighted at having startled her friend. She stroked the palomino's neck. "I've been afraid of horses, yes, ever since a stable tick bit me and gave me Lyme Disease. But Professor Begh, who is an expert in things a-questioning (she probably meant equestrian; Joan always did stumble over long words), assured me that that had been a fluke, pure bad luck. A phobia, and a certain friend of ours encouraged me to get over it."

Grace nodded, getting the reference. "A certain friend" was God, and Grace and Luke would understand that. But the Beghs didn't know of their secret. "How did you cure yourself?"

"Simple practice. The Beghs, here, let me visit the corral after work. I could get as near or as far from the horses as I liked, with nobody to nag or laugh at me. Finally I got the nerve to walk up to a horse and pat it. Haven't you noticed that I've been missing a lot of evenings?"

"Yeah, but I didn't dream that you were playing chicken with a horse."

Joan turned red_. What the hell are you doing Grace? Joan's your best friend, and she's just done something to be proud of, conquering a phobia. This isn't the time to be snarky. What have YOU accomplished lately_? "No, ignore that, I'm really happy for you, Joan." She stepped forward and gave the Girardi girl a hug.

"Um," said Luke, who was obviously feeling odd-man-out, having no interest in horses himself. "Pardon me, but is the horse part of the tableau, or is it--"

"It's for Grace," said the Professor. "I talked to her parents. They're not used to the responsibilities of owning a horse -- stabling, veterinary treatments, etc. So we'll keep the horse here, but Grace can ride it whenever she wants." 

"Which is the main point, is it not?" asked Maggie. "Care to try her out?"

"All right." Grace put her foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself up into the saddle. It was good that she was wearing jeans today, but then she always did. "Anyone riding with me?"

"This is your occasion, Grace," said the Professor. A nice way of saying that he knew she was a loner and would like to try out her new steed alone.

The various onlookers -- Joan, Luke, Maggie, and the Professor -- retreated to a safe distance, obviously figuring that Grace would need some elbow room to get use to a new mount. She urged it into a slow walk, circling the edge of the house toward the Begh's pasture. With a safe area ahead, she shouted, "Giddyap!" and galloped across the field.

As usually happened when she first started a ride, she felt a rush, a feeling of power combined with the vantage point of looking DOWN on everything else. It was a particular relief after her recent melancholy -- even though she knew deep down that the melancholy reflected real problems and the rush was purely temporary.

She saw a woman riding toward her on a brilliant white horse. She was too big to be Maggie and too statuesque to be Joan. Then Grace realized who it had to be. _Uh-oh_.

Trying to at least to dominate the conversation by starting it, Grace called out: "The Beghs are going to wonder who the strange woman is, trespassing on their property. Sure, it's your world, but are you going to tell THEM that?"

"They won't notice us," Cowgirl God said. "You know that I can control things like that."

"Yeah. So what's the purpose of this visit?"

"Do you remember that little journey that I sent you on, about six weeks ago?"

Grace winced. After she had said some critical things about God's Creation, she had sent Grace to an alternate universe, where people were always moral. It ought to have been ideal from Grace's point of view; instead she found the continual goodness intensely boring. It had culminated in a disastrous encounter in which Grace mistook a guy for a jerk and beat him up. But it turned out that he was in the right (of course) and Grace in the wrong. "You're the only being I know who would call a trip to another universe a 'little journey'. I've been trying to forget it."

"Grace, the purpose of learning experiences is to be remembered, not forgotten."

"Then tell me why it's important."

Cowgirl God seemed to concede the point. "Shortly, you're going to have another opportunity to visit an alien culture -- one that won't match your ideals. But this time, mistakes can have consequences -- 'bad ripples' as you kids call them. You need to decide whether you are ready for the challenge."

"But what--?"

Without any further explanation, Cowgirl God picked up the reins and turned her horse around, and the frustrated Grace found herself staring at the familiar wave of the hand, and the deity's horse's receding rump.

It looked like Grace was in for another surprise.

TBC


	3. Grace's Acid

**COMING OF AGE**

**Chapter 3 Grace's acid**

The next day, Grace was startled to see Mrs. Girardi walk down the corridor at school, holding a large envelope. She was a former art teacher there, to be sure, but she had given up the position due to what she called "conflicts of interest" -- having to judge the work of kids whom she knew privately and liked or disliked, as in the cases of Adam and Bonnie. But nearly all the kids she knew were graduating this year, and she planned to reapply for the position the next fall.

Grace hoped that Joan and Luke were not in trouble with Price. But Mrs. Girardi was smiling, which was not a reaction that Vice-Principal Price tended to inspire.

An hour later, when Luke and Grace made out in the biology closet, Grace found herself being embraced with unusual fervor. Only on THAT night had she seen him more ardent than this. "Wow, you're full of energy today."

"Got great news."

"Yeah?" So that was what in Mrs. Girardi's envelope, and the cause of her good mood. "Tell me!"

"This afternoon, at 2, in the biology classroom."

"But there's no class then."

"That's why we can meet there."

To Grace there was one obvious reason for Luke's joy, and she wondered why he simply didn't blurt it out. Maybe he was getting in some mild revenge for the way she had ridiculed his talk about Game Theory and surprises yesterday. In any case, she would have to wait until 2:00.

When she got to the classroom, she was surprised at the crowd: Joan, Adam, Friedmann, Glynis, Maggie, and even Ms. Lischak. In short, everybody in the school who took a personal interest in Luke's welfare.

Luke took a position in front of the room as if he were the teacher. He waved the envelope that his mother had brought. "To start with, I've been accepted into Harvard, to start this fall."

Everyone cheered -- including Grace, who had suspected that that was the good news. The first person to follow up with another comment was Joan. "I thought that they wanted to wait until you were the usual age."

"That's how it stood for a long time with the admissions committee. But then I sent some of my work from my personal time to some biology professors there, and they were impressed enough to go to bat for me, and get me immediate admission.."

"That work must have been very impressive," commented Glynis.

"Thanks. There's the second reason I called you guys in -- I wanted to show you what I had done." It was obvious that Luke was just as proud of his project as he was of getting into the prestigious university. "It started when um, a friend of mine suggested that I take a well-defined process, and try to design an alternative. I went to Ms. Lischak"

_A friend, yeah. God, giving us looking pokes in the rear, like that dumb ox in Edenworld, to make sure that we keep heading in the right direction,_

"I suggested that he look into the double helix," said the teacher. In spite of her well-known love of histrionics, she seemed to show no resentment at being upstaged by her student at the moment. After all, his success was a reflection on her. "The groundwork was laid 40 years ago when Watson and Crick worked out the structure of DNA and RNA. Lately the genome project has given us a lot more detail. But most of the information is 'what's there', not 'how could it have happened differently'."

"I focussed on messenger-RNA, which reads acids on the double helix three at a time and conveys the information elsewhere," said Luke. "I wondered: why three? Reading two or one at a time would pick up too little information, so I dismissed those, and hypothesized a variant called GNA that could read four at a time."

"What does the G in GNA stand for?" asked Friedmann.

"Er, Grace's Nucleic Acid," stammered Luke.

Everybody laughed except Grace, who found herself turning red. When it had died down a bit Luke added defensively: "A discoverer can name things as he wishes."

_Wouldn't you know that the first thing to be named after me would be an acid?_

"How about experimenting?" asked Adam. "I'm no professional, but wouldn't you need a lab?" He waved back at the apparatus in their own classroom.

"I wrote a program to simulate the behavior of the amino acids."

"That in itself must have impressed them a lot," observed Glynis.

"So, after I put together a copy of GNA and studied its behavior," Luke went on, "I had to explain why it didn't work."

"Did NOT work?" repeated Maggie, puzzled. "Did you not want your discovery to work?"

"Sure. But if it was workable, we'd see GNA all the time around us, and we don't. It turns out that GNA forms slowly. Put a batch of relevant chemicals together, and RNA will snap up all the resources before GNA has a chance. So very little of it gets formed."

"I don't get it," said Joan. "You've invented something that is really nothing."

"Negative results can be important in science," put in Lischak. "For example, over a hundred years ago a brilliant engineer named Michelson invented an ingenious machine to measure the absolute velocity of the Earth through space. It should have worked, but it failed each time. To explain that, Einstein came up with the theory that there is no absolute motion, only motion relative to an observer. The Theory of Relativity."

"And we can control conditions," said Luke. "For example, I saw a cute Shetland pony at Maggie's farm yesterday. Put a little animal like that in an African savannah with wild predators, and it wouldn't last a day. Put it in suburban America, and everybody will try to protect it and it will flourish. GNA is like that. We can set up lab conditions to produce it and discourage the formation of RNA, and then we can use it."

"Use it to do what?" said Adam.

"Don't know yet. But Ben Franklin answered that question with another question two hundred years ago," said Luke. "What use is a newborn baby?"

"Infinite use," said Glynis, the new mother. "The possibilities are endless."

"I can see some of them," said her husband with glazed eyes. "Four acids with four possibilities can carry 256 possible values, a byte of information. A biological computer, maybe? Wow--"

They crowded around Luke to congratulate him on the school acceptance and the discovery. Glynis startled Grace by giving Luke a kiss. But Friedmann, standing just a foot away, didn't seem to mind his wife's gesture at all, so Grace decided to let it slide. What was a kiss between nerds?

"So!" said Ms. Lischak, seeing the opportunity for a dramatic statement, "if Luke's theory works out, then a hundred years from now the science and history books will still be talking about the Girardi Principle and Grace's Nucleic Acid. Be honored, Grace."

Yeah, it was sort of an honor, but it wasn't the sort of honor that Grace wanted. It implied that she was a sort of muse, a helpmate to her man, not an independent person.

The Mona Lisa was world-famous, but did anybody nowadays know or care who Lisa was, or who posed for her? Who really remembered muses in the long run? The ancient ones, yes, but they were goddesses, and Grace supposed that was sufficient for them. It wasn't for a girl of the twentieth or twenty-first centuries.

The Curies had been careful to let the world know that Marie did the more important work, instead of just helping Pierre. Ariel Durant, having helped her husband research his famous history of Europe (Grace's father was a proud owner of an entire set), eventually demanded and got part-credit for much of the work. Look at Joan. A couple of months ago she had played Muse for Adam, letting him sketch her in the nude for a painting of Aphrodite -- but she had also helped her father break a loan-sharking racket a week ago, and had nearly caught the most wanted criminal in Arcadia history, Ryan Hunter.

More than ever, Grace wanted an accomplishment of her own.

TBC


	4. Dinner and Destiny

**COMING OF AGE**

**Chapter 4 Dinner and Destiny**

There were 13 people at the dinner, though nobody got superstitious over the fact.. Six Girardis: Will and Helen, the three children, Kevin's wife Lily, and Joan's fiance Adam.. The three Polonskis. Mr. and Mrs. Cavalo and their teenaged son. They had left their new, adopted baby with a babysitter recommended by Helen.

Lily was puzzled as to why the Cavalos didn't bring their infant, but nearly everybody else at the table knew. . The official reason was that they didn't want their baby to distract attention from the guest of honor, Grace. But the real reason was that the birth mother was Bonnie McLean, and she had had an affair with Adam a year ago. Though she insisted that Adam wasn't the father, she had named the boy after the artist.. Joan had forgiven her Adam and asked him to be her husband, but there was no point in dredging up bad memories at the moment.

Grace listened as the senior Mrs. Girardi (Lily was also a Mrs. Girardi) reassured her parents about the Italian cuisine. "I talked to Mrs. Figlioli, whose culture is both Italian and Jewish. She told me how to abide by kosher requirements, while we were tending her daughter's new baby."

"Ah, yes," put in Kevin. "I heard about the girl and that baby. An IQ of, like, 150, but she still let herself get knocked up?"

"Double standard," Joan said angrily, startling Grace, who had been tempted to say the same thing. "Friedmann's a brain, too, but nobody gets upset that he knocked up Glynis." She glared at her parents. "You congratulate me on staying a virgin until marriage, but you were almost PROUD of Luke when you found that he--" Joan caught herself just in time, remembering that the tryst between Grace and Luke was still a sore point with the Polonskis..

The Cavalos hastily changed the subject to their farm, which seemed to be doing quite well. The Polonskis seemed interested, or at least found it a safer topic than teenagers and sex.

"I don't know much about farming myself," said the rabbi, "but the Polonskis were farmers back in Poland for generations, until my grandfather immigrated to the U.S."

"Like FIDDLER ON THE ROOF?" asked the Cavalo boy naively.

"I suppose so, except that my ancestors didn't sing."

Everybody laughed at that, though partially at relief on having found a safe subject.

"Grace seemed to enjoy her visits to your farm, even when she had to work hard," said Mrs. Polonski. "You were the ones who taught her how to ride, weren't you?"

"Actually, that was our farmhand, Diana, who taught her," replied Mrs. Cavalo. She frowned. "She left soon after that, and I haven't been able to find out where. I hope she's all right."

"I'm sure she is," assured Grace, who knew that "Diana" had been God in disguise. "But about farm hands -- could I help out again this summer?"

She had tried to sound casual, but Mrs. Cavalo must have detected a note of desperation in the voice, because she sounded very regretful. "Um, I'm sorry, Grace. But when we adopted the baby we realized I had to devote time to him rather than the farm, and so we hired some permanent workers."

"I see," said Grace, trying to conceal her disappointment.

"I heard that you've been working with a famine-relief organization," the rabbi queried Mr. Cavalo. "Is it a missionary organization, or a U.N. agency?"

"Neither; it's a private foundation," explained the farmer. "It's called SEED -- a double meaning, because it not only deals with agriculture but is an acronym for Sowing Economic and Ecological Development. The idea is to not only grow food to end famine, but to develop a crop that will continue to yield there year after year, so that the territory can become self-sufficient. They are planning to export the first shipment of seeds this fall, but--"

"But they were vulnerable to blight! I SAW them rot!" protested Grace.

"No, not that strain -- the geneticists are still working the bugs out of them," assured Mrs. Cavalo. "No, the shipments are of an earlier strain in which they are confident. It's been tested in the target countries itself."

"Oh. Sorry. What were you about to say when I interrupted, Uncle Jonathan?" That "uncle" may have startled the Girardis -- he was their relative, not hers -- but the Cavalos had encouraged her to use the names when she first visited with Luke.

"It's all right. The delay is in recruiting people to train the locals -- when to plant the crop, what soil is best, what kind of man--, um, fertilizer to use. It will be a demanding job. The trainer may have to live in primitive conditions, then travel to another location and do the same thing, over and over. The roads will be poor, so the trainer may sometimes have to rely on animals for transportation. Definitely a tough position."

_"Oh!" _Suddenly Grace had a -- she didn't know what to call it. A revelation, a mystic explosion in her head in which everything suddenly made sense.

"Are you all right, Grace?" asked Joan.

Grace couldn't make small talk right now. She had to get alone, to absorb what had happened to her with no distractions. "Um, gotta go to the bathroom. May I--?"

"Of course," said Mrs. Girardi. "Upstairs, you know where."

Grace raced up the stairs, locked herself into the bathroom, and tried to get her thoughts under control.

Everything was coming together. That vision of the Edenworld, lacking modern technology but with its own virtues. God's suggestion that Grace stop treating schoolwork as torture and value the knowledge she could gain. The odd stress on biology as the best subject. The mission of getting to know Maggie Begh, and through her a non-Western culture. Cowgirl's God's insistence that Grace learn to ride horses, at a time that Grace dismissed it as a rich girl's hobby. For that matter, the directive to visit the Cavalo farm in the first place. The deity's decision, nearly a year ago, to stop working through Joan alone and to take Grace under Her wing as well. And Grace's lifelong alienation from the prosperous society that she grew up in.

All would be fulfilled if Grace were to sign up for the foundation and teach poorer lands how to grow food and break their dependence on others..

Now Grace had her mission!

_(Author's Note: In case anybody is curious, I've been planning this possible future for Grace for a long time, ever since I wrote the WINTER JOURNEYS story)._

_TBC_


	5. Pros and Cons

**COMING OF AGE**

**Chapter 5 Pros and Cons**

Of course all ecstasies had their letdowns.

When Grace came back downstairs and eagerly questioned the Cavalos about the famine-relief job, her parents stayed silent. They were, after all, expert in concealing family trouble from outsiders. But later, in the privacy of their home, they started raising objections.

"Wanting to help people is a _mitzvah_, I agree," said the rabbi, using the traditional Hebrew word for a good deed. "But is this particular _mitzvah_ appropriate for you?"

"Gracie dear, I hate to be negative," said Mrs. Polonski diffidently. "but you do have a rather prickly personality. Here in Arcadia, if something goes wrong, you have family and friends to help you out. But what happens if you antagonize your companions on the job, and home is thousands of miles away?"

The girl hated being called "Gracie, dear", but she had to admit that her mother had a point. She remembered the misunderstanding in Edenworld, of which her parents knew nothing. "I'll learn to control myself."

"There are matters over which you may have no control," said the rabbi. "We live an enlightened country where Jews are tolerated and safe. But there are many places in the world where anti-Semitism is rampant. Come into contact with Muslims, and you might be drawn into a deadly quarrel about Israel and the Palestinians, even though I know you've criticized the Zionist cause. Don't expect Muslims in a primitive area to have the same sophistication as the Beghs."

"I'd think the agency would be careful where they assign me," countered Grace. "After all, I'd have to have the trust of the locals, right?"

"At least don't commit yourself until after your birthday weekend!" insisted her mother.

"It's not like enlisting in the army, where I'm stuck once I've done it," pointed out Grace. "But, yeah, I can promise that."

Psychologically, the promise worked: the parents became less frantic about talking Grace out of her job choice. Unfortunately, that probably meant that they would keep bringing up the subject during the weekend, all the way to New York and back.

For once, school actually seemed a relief: people there either knew nothing about her idea, or supported it. Joan, who had seen Grace's enthusiasm the previous night, pulled Grace aside to a ladies' room at one point to talk privately. "I don't think I've ever seen you so happy, Grace."

"Yeah. For once, I'm not feeling alienated by something. I think this is what was destined to do."

"Lily says people are "called" to a certain career. That's where the word vocation came from, she said, "voca" to call. Of course that may just be a Catholic point of view, but--"

"She's right, at least in my case. I think that _He's_ been pulling strings for some time." Grace repeated to Joan her reasoning from last night, how each mission had fed into her current plan.

"I wonder -- I've been going on missions for him two years more than you have, but I still don't see what the plan is behind it, even though I'm sure that there is one." Joan shrugged. "But let's not get concerned about that now. This is your weekend." She gave her friend a kiss.

Adam had also been at the dinner, but characteristically he had replied in pictures instead of words. At lunch he gave Grace a drawing of herself, dressed as an ancient goddess of agriculture (Adam was still on a mythology kick), with a floral wreath on her hair and carrying a cornucopia. At least he hadn't tried to draw her nude; she had seen some very weird depictions of fertility goddesses.

But underneath Grace was still remembering her mother's warning. As she was exchanging books in her locker before her last class, she heard a voice behind her say: "Still of two minds, Grace?"

She turned around to see an oddly elegant young man whom she had seen a couple of times in the halls.. Ostensibly he worked for Vice-Principal Price, but Grace knew who he really was. "You know that I am. You know what happened in Ed-, in the other place. Am I ready to tackle an alien culture? Give me a straight answer."

"When you have doubts," said the young man, "meditate on this: 'I am a human being, and nothing human is alien to me'."

"Is that from the Torah? Or the Christian Bible?"

"Neither, actually. It was written by the ancient Roman playwright, Terrence. But it was still inspired." He walked off, with the characteristic God-wave.

Well, that was probably as straight an answer as she was going to get from Him.

Once Grace got home she helped her parents pack up and load the car for the New York trip. New York was about 200 miles from Arcadia, but they would be driving near two big cities, Baltimore and Philadelphia, during a Friday rush hour. Probably they wouldn't reach their destination until the late hours, but at least they would wake up THERE on Saturday and be ready for their tour. The rabbi had of course arranged for somebody to preside over the service at the synagogue in his place.

They were anxious to get started, and so her parents were naturally annoyed when they saw a familiar boy on the sidewalk, running up and calling "Wait! Stop!"

Grace also saw Luke, and her heart sank. Suddenly she remembered the other big news of the week, Luke's acceptance at Harvard. Though they had not talked about it explicitly at the time, they had earlier talked vaguely of her finding some place in Boston that would let her stay near her beloved if he got in. He was probably coming now to ask her to stay.. But she knew that, if it came to a choice, she would choose her new vocation over Luke. Maybe the split-up was inevitable, but did it have to happen now?

Grace got out of the car, and waited while Luke caught his breath. When he did, he said, "I've been talking to the Cavalos -- and looking at SEED's website -- if you decide to go abroad working for them, Grace, so will I."

"WHAT? What about Harvard?"

"They kept telling me to wait a year. I'll tell THEM to wait."

"Will they? And what are you giving it up for? Luke, you don't like farming, even at your cousins."

"I looked through the site. They need other types of people -- lab assistants, for example. So they don't have to ship soil or diseased tissue all the way to Europe or America if things go wrong. I might not be assigned to exactly your sites, Grace, but at least there won't be an ocean between us."

"But what about your discovery? My acid?"

"If it's fruitful, somebody else will follow it up -- my sponsors in the biochemistry department, maybe. I think they'll be honest enough to give me the original credit. If it's a _cul-de-sac_, well, better that I do something that helps people instead of wasting my time.."

"Don't burn your bridges to Harvard just yet. Even if they accept me, I'll probably have to go through months of training, and could still flunk out. Then you'll have lost your big chance for nothing." Though she didn't think she would flunk. _He_ would see to that.

"I'd have lost it for you, and you're never nothing. But I'll wait, if you ask me."

She nodded, and Luke walked away after giving her one final kiss. She turned and looked at her parents, who were watching her out the car windows with the most curious expressions. It was not impatience at the interruption. It was not at all disapproval of Luke, which she had seen them show before. It was introspective, as if they were both searching their memories for some time in their past, when Love really seemed to conquer all. Grace had never visualized her parents as young lovers grown old before.

But it looked like her plans had survived her worries of attack, from her parents or from Luke. Tomorrow was her birthday, and Grace already seemed to have everything that she wanted.

Except one.

TBC


	6. The Big Day

**COMING OF AGE**

**Chapter 6 The Big Day**

_(Author's Note: This chapter has been revised slightly in response to NYKLM's review)_

Rabbi Polonski entered the hotel early Saturday evening. He had gotten a cell phone call about a minor crisis at the synagogue. It wouldn't require a return home, but he'd have to make a few long-distance phone calls to straighten things out. So he told his wife that he would return to the hotel while she and Grace visited Central Park.

He spotted a familiar figure sitting on a lobby sofa with a nervous look. "Luke! What are you doing here?"

Luke jumped up guiltily. "I -- um -- you gotta understand -- ulp -- ".

"I see." The rabbi said, as if Luke had made a coherent explanation. To him it was obvious why Luke was here. Grace had slept with Luke on his birthday. Now that it was her day--

The rabbi thought deeply. Over the years there were many occasions where he had compromised his principles for the sake of protecting his alcoholic wife. Only in the past year or two had he realized how much his decisions had hurt Grace. So perhaps one more compromise, this time for Grace's benefit? It would be very hard to justify to his congregation or to any other rabbi, but Polonski felt that this decision would be between himself, the lovers, and God. And he had an odd impression that on this one occasion, God would not mind.

"Come up with me," he said.

-------

Before saying goodnight to her parents on the day of her birthday, Grace had one last thing to say. "Once I'm out of high school, and I'm starting on other things, I want to get my name fixed. Grace Polonski."

"Are you sure?" asked her mother. Her father seemed oddly preoccupied tonight.

"Yes. 'Polk' was a dramatic gesture, years ago, but it doesn't matter anymore. I'd have changed it earlier, except that I didn't want to tangle with Price about changing all my school records."

She kissed her parents, then went through the connecting door, shutting it behind her. She had thought originally that they would all three share a hotel room, with her parents taking one bed and Grace the other. Instead Grace got a room of her own -- and it was a lavish room, with a balcony that gave a wonderful view of Manhattan.

It was part of a campaign that she had noticed all weekend -- spoil her with luxury on this trip, in the hope that she would be less likely to choose a lifestyle in poor circumstances abroad. She remembered the legend of the Buddha: how the saint's father, hearing a prophecy that his son would renounce his heritage for a holy life, had tried to spoil him with riches and power. Grace had never felt a parallel between herself and the Buddha before, but he seemed to make sense. But it seemed to be backfiring: Grace was feeling guilty because she was enjoying herself so much, and that was making her lean towards the SEED plan.

She had refused to patronize the expensive Fifth Avenue stores, except to buy a wedding gift for Adam and Joan. She wasn't much interested in concerts. The central activity of the day had been to attend the matinee performance of a Broadway musical; Grace had chosen WICKED, because she liked the title. Tomorrow she would tour two of the great museums: the Met Museum of Art, for Adam's sake, and the Rose Planetarium, for Luke's.

But the most profound experience of the day had been to look at the endless skyscrapers of mid-town Manhattan and realizing what they implied. It wasn't the masonry that struck her, but what they implied about people. Say there were a dozen people per floor. Multiply that by all the floors; multiply that by the number of skyscrapers she saw. It came out to -- she wasn't sure; she couldn't do math in her head like some of her friends. But it added up to an awful lot. There was just a tiny percentage of the population of the world.

And out of those billions, God had chosen Joan and her friends. Why? They would probably never know. To be sure, the appearance of Ryan Hunter a year ago had forced God to admit that Joan was not unique: there had been other errand-runners and probably they were some were others who existed right now, hidden in the billions.

For now Grace would mind her own business.

Their last foray of the day had been a walk around Central Park, which had left Grace hot and tired. She needed a shower. She took off her blouse, and proceeded to unfasten her bra.

"Um, better not do that, Grace," said a familiar voice.

She spun toward the balcony, where the sound had come from. Luke was standing there, somehow managing to look eager and sheepish at the same time.

"How the hell did you get on my balcony?" she demanded. "We're more than 20 floors up!"

"Would you believe I invented an anti-gravity device?"

"Nope."

"Would you believe that I climbed up all the balconies and floors out of my eagerness to be with you?"

"Nope."

"Would you believe that your Dad let me in?"

"Nope."

"Well, the last one's true."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. He said he was impressed by the offer I made yesterday. Said that on this one special day he would let us do what we wanted. He said he knew I would never hurt you, that I'd leave if you asked."

"I'm not asking." She drew a deep breath. "So you're coming to return my 'birthday present' from my last November?"

"Right."

"What, didn't you like it?"

"I loved it. So much that I wanted to, um, share it today."

"So why did you stop me from taking off my bra?"

"Thought you deserved to know that I was watching, so you wouldn't expose yourself against your will."

"Well, now that I know -- let's start unwrapping our presents."

-----

She was still vaguely conscious of being surrounded by millions of people, including her parents in the next room. It didn't matter. Under the bedclothes, it was like they were wrapped in their own cocoon.

"Let's get married," she said dreamily.

"Did you wait to try me out a couple of times before asking?"

"Shut up."

"How can I answer your proposal if I'm shut up?"

"Answer THAT."

"Okay." He fell silent a few moments before speaking. That was already a sign that she wouldn't like the answer. "Things are too volatile, Grace. I'm still just 17. Right now I'm broke; I had to borrow money from Joan just to follow you here. Suppose one of us flunks out of the training program and the other gets sent overseas? Suppose I burn out over there and you're determined to stay? Suppose we can't get assigned to the same spot? What if we can stay together, but you get pregnant over there?"

"Eek! Don't mention pregnancy at a time like this!"

"We're protected now. But it might be more difficult to manage that out in the field. There are just too many unknowns, Grace."

"But none of that stopped you from getting in bed with me."

"Are you complaining?"

"No."

"I came because you wanted me with you on your Special Day, Grace. Let's treat it as special, and handle the future as it comes. And please don't hit me."

"I won't."

Grace rolled over to kiss her beloved. As she did so she spotted the bedside clock, just changing to 12:01.

Grace had gotten through her 18th birthday, and all was right with the world. It was a good sign. Grace now felt that she was prepared to face the rest of her life.

THE BEGINNING


End file.
